Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok Episode 11 Commentary

The episodes are officially in the phase of “follow the characters from day to day without worrying about a plot right now”, but this episode did give a good look at Frey, and his interactions with others. He only had trouble in school because he was competing at every corner. If he weren’t out to get Loki, Frey’d probably be friends with Loki and Thor. Considering Mayumi’s always with the latter two, it’s surprising that Frey doesn’t switch sides.

Frey and Gullinbursti blur the line between good and bad for the characters. Not only will Frey stray between both sides, due to Mayura, and will be there for Heimdall when needed, but Gullinbursti gave no second thoughts to assisting Loki against the manifested evil.

Heimdall and Frey don’t care one bit about who might notice their otherworldly extravagances, between Heimdall’s inn and Frey’s battleship. Has no one noticed all these things going on yet, and had it circulate in some manner of news?

The part of this episode that leaves me confused is Loki’s decision to take Reiya to the woods when he went. Obviously Loki was concerned about Mayura and what Frey might do to save the club, but doesn’t that suggest Frey might use some manner of magic, exactly the kind of thing to keep Reiya away from? Not only did Loki take her into a potentially unsafe situation, but there was no purpose for her in the episode, other than for her to see the giant statue. Whether seeing these events will have a long-term impact on her as Freya is to be seen.

Dub flubs abound in this episode. First, early on Frey calls Mayura by her name, saying “Fear not, Mayura!”, but in the Japanese dialogue her name isn’t mentioned. This creates inconsistencies within the episode when Mayura later says for Frey to call her by her name, and he struggles in trying to do so.

Although not a mistake, the dub give Frey’s “human name” as Bob VonBurglarstein. The Japanese uses “Frey Kaito” (Frey Thief), which works well with Mayura calling him “Mr. Thief” (although this is what she calls him before he creates a “human name” for himself). Also, the use of “Bob” gives him a very Western-style name when others use Japanese names: Thor as Narugami, and Heimdall as…whatever name it was he gave. Actually, Heimdall told Mayura he’d be seeing her again, and he hasn’t been face-to-face with her since.

Finally, when watching through in English, I knew Jizo was going to be Buddha. That in itself suggests that “Buddha” is a recognizable name for an American audience, whereas “Jizo” is not. It’s a bit ironic that Reiya would call him “Buddha” when Jizo (to my understanding) refused to become a Buddha until certain conditions were met. Still, I understand the change, as Jizo is popular in Japan and unknown in America.